Chapter 8 Chapter 01 "Good and Evil", "Good and Bad" (8)

—But you didn’t understand?You don't see something that takes two thousand years to be successful? ... This is not surprising: all long-term developments are difficult to observe, difficult to judge.But here's the big thing: out of that vengeful trunk, out of that Jewish hatred, out of the deepest, most extreme hatred that creates ideals, transforms values ​​that has never been seen on earth grows something equally incomparable a new kind of love, the deepest and most extreme of all loves:—from what other trunk could such a love grow? . . . But do not mistake this love for the negation of that longing for revenge, sprouted as the antithesis of Jewish hatred!no!The truth is just the opposite!It is from that trunk that this love grows, its crown, a crown that unfolds triumphantly and gradually in the purest brightness and sunlight.Even in the realm of light and height, the canopy seems to seek the purpose, the victory, the spoil, the allurement of that hate with the same thirst which drives deeper and deeper the roots of that hate in all abysses, where All the sins become more and more greedy.This Jesus of Nazareth, the Gospel personified of love, the "Saviour" who brought blessing and victory to the poor, the sick, the sinner,--was he not the most insidious, most irresistible temptation ?Doesn't this temptation and detour lead to the reconstruction of those Jewish values ​​and ideals?Is it not through the detour of this "savior", Israel's ostensible enemy and savior, that Israel achieves the final goal of its carefully planned revenge?Is this not the secretly illegal art of a really great tactic of revenge?Isn't this a farsighted, stealthy, slow and well-planned revenge?Isn't Israel itself compelled to spurn the real instrument of its revenge in front of the whole world like a sworn enemy and have it crucified so that the "whole world", i.e. all enemies of Israel, swallows the bait without a second thought ?Could anyone, out of all the wiles of the mind, conceive of a more dangerous bait?What seductive, intoxicating, paralyzing, degrading power can compete with the symbol of the "Holy Cross," the horrific paradox of the "Crucified God," who crucified Himself for the happiness of mankind. On a par with the mystery of this unimaginable last act of cruelty on the cross?At least it is certain that with this scenario, with its revenge and reassessment of all hitherto values, Israel has continually triumphed over all other ideals, all nobler ideals. ——